Julia

Danny M

Switzerland

Tune into your body's internal systems and respond to its needs to cultivate greater balance and comfort.

Science

Stress & Anxiety

Psychology

Stress

Guided Imagery

Visualization

English

This is the 3rd meditation in my Embody course to help you get in touch with your body gently and progressively.  This meditation focuses on the different neurological systems in your body, from alertness to hunger and thirst, to your digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems. You learn how to listen for urges and needs in your body, and to respond to these requests, and listen in again.  The idea of the course is that you practice this until it becomes easy and you want a new challenge.
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Embody -03 - Balancing Your Body's Systems

 Welcome to this embodiment meditation called balancing your body's systems. Your body is balancing itself all the time underneath the level of your consciousness, maintaining stability within its systems while it adjusts to the changing conditions around you. If you bring your consciousness to the various systems of your body, you can help your body to do this better. Let's take a moment to notice how sleepy you feel right now. Have you had enough sleep, meaning you feel wakeful and not in need of sleep? Or are you tired, maybe even drowsy, wishing you could sleep at this moment? Just notice where your body is at right now in terms of its need for sleep. A related system is your level of alertness. Right now, are you craving more activity and more stimulation, feeling very alert and ready to go? Or is your alertness lower, where you're in the mood for something calmer and slower and less intense? Do you want to do anything to make yourself more comfortable right now in terms of alertness or sleepiness? Could you change your posture or your movement to bring yourself into a more or less alert place or a more or less sleepy place that would feel more comfortable for you? Listen to your body for any urges or desires from within that might help you manage your wakefulness and your alertness right now. Are you feeling interested or bored? How is your hunger right now? Have you had enough to eat or could you use more? Is there a particular food you'd like to have? Are you thirsty? Would taking some liquid in make your body feel more at ease? What do you want to do right now, if anything, to make yourself more comfortable? Again, listen for any urges or desires from inside your body. Let's turn your attention to the actions of your digestive system. Can you feel your stomach and anything that's going on in there? Or perhaps your intestines, your bowel, your bladder? Is there a sense when you focus on your digestive system of a need or a desire for anything? Is there discomfort there that you might be able to assist with by taking some action or taking some note of an action that created it to be cautious of in the future? Is your body comfortable right now in terms of its temperature and its position? Do you feel like moving, adding clothing, taking away clothing? Do you have any urges to stretch or shake yourself, to rearrange yourself or sit more still? If you listen to your body right now, what does it feel like doing? Are you feeling well right now or are you fighting off a cold? Or perhaps you're recovering from an illness or healing from an injury or managing a chronic condition that your body has acquired. When you listen to your body, what does it feel like it needs for you to be as well as you can be and as comfortable as you can? Turning your attention to your breathing for a moment. Does your breathing feel fast or slow or just right? Does it feel deep or shallow? Where is your body moving most with your breath? As you take a breath in and let a breath go, is it your upper chest that moves the most? Is it your solar plexus right where your sternum ends? Or is it your belly, closer to your belly button, that moves the most? What's the shape of your breathing right now? And as you pay attention to this, do you feel like making any conscious changes to the depth or the speed or the shape of your breath? Are there changes that you could make with your will that would feel more comfortable for you? Right now, are you aware of the actions of your heart? Can you sense your heart beating in your ears or your chest or your throat or anywhere else? And if you take your own pulse with your fingers at your wrist, what awareness does that give you of the actions of your heart? Is it fast or is it slow? Is it racing or calmly beating? What are you aware of? Turning your attention to your muscles now. Are your muscles loose and relaxed? Are they ready for action and movement? Are they tight and stiff, as if they're gripping or holding on to things? How do your muscles feel? And is it the same with all the muscles in your body? Is it the same everywhere? Or are there tight ones and loose ones, ones that are just right? What are you noticing? Would you like to make any adjustments by stretching or rubbing or massaging a muscle? Just notice any urges or desires and see if you can action those. This is really the essence of maintaining balance in your body. With your consciousness, you direct your attention to a bodily system and get a readout from your body. And you bring curiosity to see if there's a request, a desire, an urge for greater comfort from your body. And if there is, you see if you can make the requested adjustment and then check in again and check in regularly. And this concludes our exploration of embodiment by balancing your body. Thank you.